Knight was here when all those players from that magical team sat in a row and talked about the team, the season, each other — and couldn’t stop talking about the man who brought them together and unleashed them on the unsuspecting world of college basketball.

Understand, they weren’t asked questions about Knight. Not every time. The topic wasn’t avoided, not at all, but the moderator and then media had specific questions about certain games, plays, moments from the 1976 season — and the answers kept coming back to Bob Knight.

Jim Crews, today the head coach at Saint Louis but in 1976 a little-used player for the Hoosiers, volunteered a moment against Illinois that demonstrated the goodness of his All-American teammate, Scott May, and the brilliance of Bob Knight.

“We’re winning by 25 points,” is how Crews starts the story. “Coach finally put me in the game. I actually made a good pass to Scott on the back cut. Scott is on Sports Illustrated, best player in the country, unbelievable guy. He makes the bucket and gets fouled.

“It’s not important that we’re 25 points up. Scott May sprints to the top of the key and gives me a big bear hug. So here’s a guy who comes off the bench, that’s not that good a player, and (May) makes you feel like a million dollars. That’s what’s really cool about these guys, these teammates you’ve had for 40 years that Coach Knight put together.”

During the last few seconds of the NCAA basketball championship game between Indiana and Michigan in Philadelphia, players of the Indiana team shout and leave the bench as Indiana beat Michigan 86-68 for the championship, March 30, 1976. (AP Photo) ASSOCIATED PRESS

Kent Benson (54), right, of Indiana, is congratulated by teammate Jim Chews, left, after being named Most Valuable Player of the NCAA basketball tournament in Philadelphia, March 30, 1976. Indiana won the championship over Michigan, 86-68. (AP Photo) Uncredited, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Indiana coach Bobby Knight, left, and team members Scott May, center, and Quinn Buckner, are all smiles as they hold the trophy for winning the NCAA Basketball championship in Philadelphia on March 30, 1976. AP

Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight chats with President Gerald Ford at the White House as the 1976 national champion Hoosiers look on during their visit on April 20, 1976. AP Photo FILE PHOTO

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Well, the Knight stories Tuesday night weren’t all lollipops and rainbows. This was Coach Knight, remember. He was a hard guy. Still is. Didn’t show up for this event despite being invited 10 different ways by 10 different people. Knight was fired as IU coach in 2000, of course, and hasn’t returned to Assembly Hall since. He’s a proud man, stubborn. Didn’t come back.

But his hardness, his fury, was here when Bobby Wilkerson was asked a general question about teammate Kent Benson — and Wilkerson used that question to riff on his coach.

“I was really glad (Benson) got here (in 1973) because Coach Knight didn’t have to holler at me any more,” Wilkerson said. “He yelled at Kent that whole year, and I blossomed after that, so all was well.”

Wilkerson was finished talking about Knight’s rage.

Just kidding.

“Our whole thing,” Wilkerson said, “was that we didn’t know what day you were gonna be in the doghouse — but for sure it was going to be at least two out of five (days), and if I had my day yesterday, it looked like your day is up today.”

All nine players laughed. So did most of the crowd, composed of all manner of members of Knight’s 1976 program. Trainers, assistant coaches, student managers. A woman who sang the national anthem. More than 40 people were invited from 1976, and all but a handful came. Nine of the 12 players still alive returned — Buckner, May, Benson, Wilkerson, Tom Abernethy, Jim Crews, Wayne Radford, Jim Roberson and Scott Eells — and the three no-shows expressed their regrets. Jim Wisman is in Europe, IU athletic director Fred Glass said, and Rich Valavicius and Bob Bender had previous commitments. (Mark Haymore died in 2004.)

The only person who didn’t respond to the invitations? Bob Knight.

He has the right, you know? His life, his decision. He was fired 15-plus years ago, and it created some hard feelings. They remain craggy. Showing up, not showing up — that’s Knight’s decision.

This was his team, and it was apparent every time one of the players was asked a question about something, anything, and brought the answer toward Knight.

Buckner was asked about an iconic photo after the 1976 title game, Scott May holding the championship trophy, one net draped around his neck, the other net draped around Buckner’s neck. They are looking at each other and smiling.

Buckner described the third guy in the photo, standing off to the side, laughing in his loud, plaid sports coat.

“The biggest part of that was seeing the smile on Coach Knight’s face,” Buckner said. “We didn’t see that very often. So you know it’s a memorable moment — it’s a moment — when you see that smile on his face.”

It all comes back to Coach Knight. For example:

So, Scott May, what was the pressure like as perfection mounted that season?

“Coach (Knight) kept everybody away from us,” May said. “Kept media away, fans away. Closed practices. He really did a heck of a job on keeping us focused — you got to give him an ‘A’ for effort. He made it pretty normal for us. If you’re asking me: How much pressure? There wasn’t any. He controlled everything around us.”

May was the wild card here, by the way. Not Bob Knight. Nobody expected Knight to show up, and sure enough, he stayed away. But Scott May? That was the mysterious one. IU officials had an idea he might show up a few days ago, but they asked the media not to mention it, not yet. They didn’t want to push May away.

As of Monday night, not even Scott May’s son — former North Carolina star Sean May — knew what his dad would do.

There’s a story there.

Sean May was a McDonald’s All American at Bloomington North who turned down a scholarship offer from the hometown Hoosiers in 2002, two years after Knight had been fired. When May and the Tar Heels played in Assembly Hall in November 2004, May was booed mercilessly.

Scott May was done with IU. Fired his coach, booed his son? Done.

But Tuesday morning Sean May called his dad in Bloomington — he never left the college town, even if he did disassociate himself from the college — and urged him to attend the party that night. Scott said yes. And so Sean bought a plane ticket from North Carolina and flew here to be with him.

Even Sean May was talking about Bob Knight.

“Coach Knight was my first example of what that player-coach relationship should be,” Scott May’s son told me. “That was my very best example, how he would do anything for his players. My dad would talk about him all the time. He was always in our house.”

Bob Knight was always in your house?

“Well, no, I don’t think he ever came to our house,” Sean May said. “But he was there, you know what I mean?”